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P. L. DE MAHCE. AUTOMATIC DO'OR OPENER AND CLOSER.

APPLICATION FILED FEB. 19, l9l9.

1,39%348. v PatentedJune24 1919.

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PETER L. DE MAB-CE, 0F MINNEAPOLIS, MIMESOTA.

AUTOMATIC DOOR OPENER AND CLGSER.

reopens.

Specification of Letters Eatent.

Patented June 24, 1219.

Application filed February 19, 1919. Serial No. 277,997.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that 1, PETER L. De MARCE, a citizen of the United States, residing at Minneapolis, in the county of Hennepin and State of Minnesota, have invented a new and useful Automatic Door Opener and Closer, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to door opening and closing devices, and the object is to provide an etficient automatic door opening and closing device especially adapted for large doors of garages and stables, where it is desired to have an automobile or other vehicle open the doors automatically as it approaches them to pass either in or out of the building.

In the accompanying drawing:

Figure 1 is a perspective interior view of a portion of a floor and wall of a garage and its doors with my improved device applied thereto. Fig. 2 is mainly an enlarged section on the line 22 in Fig. 1.. Fig. 3 is a top view of a portion of the operating mechanism shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 4 is an enlarged partly sectional view of the cylinder and the valves controlling the inlets and outlets of the same. Fig. 5 is a detail top view of the right hand door in Fig. 1. Fig. 6 is a left h nd edge view of the upper end of the door in Fig. 5. I

Referring to the drawing by reference numerals, 7 designates the floor, 8 the front wall and 9 and 9 the front doors of a garage or similar building. The doors may be either slidable or hinged, but in the drawing they are shown as hinged on hinges 10, and are provided with any suitable locking means (not shown).

Each. door is provided with a gooseneck bracket 11 or 11, projecting slightly above the top of the door. Secured uponthe wall is a cylinder 12 having two internal stopping rings 13 between which plies a piston 14, having a piston rod 15 with a head 16, at its outer end; said head is slidable on a guiding and supporting bar 17 fixed in brackets 18 on the wall.

From said head extends a cable or chain 19, which is guided by pulleys 20-21 on the wall and has two arms 22, 23, of which the arm 22 is connected to the bracket 11 and serves to open the door 9; and the'arm, 23, is passed over a guide pulley 24 and secured to the bracket 11 so as to open door 9 simultaneously with the door 9*.

From the head 16 also extends a cable or chain 25, which is guided by pulleys 26, 27,

on the wall and is formed with two branches or arms 28, 29; the arm 28 is passed over a guide pulley 30 and attached to the bracket 1.1 for closing door 9*; and the arm 29 is passed over a guide pulley 31 and connected to bracket 11 for closing the door 9.

The piston 14 may be operated by either water pressure or air pressure, but to cut the description short we will say that com-- pressed air from a reservoir (not shown) usually kept in garages, for inflating the pneumatic tires of auto vehicles, or for other purposes, delivers compressed air through a pipe 32 and its branches 33, 34 into the ends of the cylinder. The flow of the air is so regulated by a valve 35 that the doors will open and close at any predetermined speed.

At thejunctionof the pipe arms 3334 is arranged a three-way valve 36, whose plug 37 (best shown "in section in Fig. 4) will admit compressed air to pass into the rear end of the cylinder, while the dead air from the front end of the cylinder may exhaust from the port 38, and if the valve'plug be given about one-fourth of a turn, it will deliver compressed air into the front end of the'cyl-" of the cylinder to exhaust through pipe 34 and exhaust port 38.

The valve plug 37 is oscillated by a radial arm 39 and a rod 40. The latter is operated by the arm 41 of a T-shaped leVer 42, which is fulcrumed at 43 upon a base piece 44 and having its short arms formed with lugs 45, between which plays the end 46 of a beam lever 47, which is fulcrumed at 48 upon the same base piece 44, and is operated by two rods 49 and 50, each of which, as well as the levers 42 and 47 are concealed in suitable underground ducts and housings, partly shown through the break-away 51 in Fig. 1. But the swinging end 41 of lever 42 projects upward through an opening 52 in the floor, and the arch 53, which has its legs pivoted at 54 and is connected to the rod 50 by a link 55, also projects normally upward through an aperture 56 in the floor (see Fig. 2). In similar manner is arranged outside the garage a similar arch 53 connected by. a link 55 to rod 49; 57 is a coil spring which by pulling constantly at one end of the lever 47 holds it in such a position that both arches 53, 53* remain normally in an upstanding position.

In the operation of the device, when an automobile approaches the doors 9, 9 from either side, one of its front wheels hits one of the arches, like the wheel 50 in Fig. 2, and folds it to the position 53; this causes the lever l7 to act against the lug 45 and so swings the lever 42 that it opens the valve 37 and lets compressed air into the front end of the cylinder and opens the door by moving the piston 14 as toward the right in the drawing. If the rear wheel of the automobile also folds the arch down that has no effect on the lever 42, which remains in the position the front wheel gave it. After the vehicle has passed through the door opening its wheels act in similar manner on the next arch to fold it in a direction away from the door, thereby causing the lever 47 to act on the lug 46 and turn the valve plug so that the compressed air will fill the rear end of the cylinder, and close the doors While the air from the front end of the cylinder exhausts at the port 38. As already stated, the spring 57, every time it gets a chance, restores and holdsthe arches in upstanding position so either of them may be operated from either side by the first wheel of the vehicle reaching it.

What I claim is I 1. An automatic door opening and closing .device comprising a cylinder having a pieton with piston rod extended beyond the cylinder, means for guiding said piston rod, flexible guided elements connecting the piston rod with the doors in such 'a manner as to open the doors when the piston moves in one direction and close themwhen 1t moves flowing element under pressure, a "alve at the junction of the pipe branches and adapted to admit the pressing element alternately into either end of the cylinder, and providing at the same time an exhaust opening from the other end of it, two arches mounted some distance from the doors to be opened, One outside and the other inside the door in the path of a vehicle intended to pass through the door; said arches having their legs pivoted to allow them to fold to either side, a spring having operative connection with the arches to hold them normally in upstanding position, and operative connection between said arches and the said valve.

2. The structure specified in claim 1, and a second valve in the supply pipe for regulating the speed of the flowing element that is to operate the piston.

3. The structure specified in claim 1, said connection between the arches and the valve comprising a beam lever disposed intermediate the two arches, and having each arm connected by a. rod to one of the arches, a three-armed lever fulcrumed near the beam lever and having two of its arms straddling one arm of. the beam lever, but spaced some distance away therefrom, the third arm having a link rod connecting it with the valve plug to turn it.

4. The structure specified in claim 3, the spring holding the arches upright being a contraction coil spring attached to one end of the beam lever which it holds in normal position by pulling directly outward from one end of it.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature.

' PETER L. DE MARCE. 

